The Cubs’ bullpen picture is starting to take shape, and it’s not hard to see why the front office is still expected to shop for relief help before Monday’s trade deadline. That remains the priority. But if Chicago gets a few more things right over the next month, September could bring a much more interesting relief mix than the one it has right now.
Daniel Palencia, Hunter Harvey and Hoby Milner are the clearest near-term returns. Palencia is expected back around the middle of August, with Harvey on a similar timeline.
Milner should be back around the deadline. Those are the arms the Cubs can reasonably plan on.
Beyond that, there are two more names that are harder to project, but far more intriguing if they do come through.
Shelby Miller added another small but meaningful sign of progress on Tuesday when he got into game action again, a step that points toward a return to the bullpen by the end of the season.
Justin Steele is the bigger wild card. The Cubs have been almost silent about his status in recent weeks, and that silence appears intentional. Jed Hoyer had already sounded irritated by the need to explain what Steele’s role might be this year, so the front office has kept the messaging tight.
What is clear now is that if Steele does make it back this season, it won’t be as a starter. Marquee Sports Network’s Alex Cohen recently reported that Steele is still advancing in his throwing program, and that there is still a chance he logs meaningful innings before the year is over.
That opens the door to a very different kind of October possibility. Steele is not being viewed as someone who would suddenly go five innings against the Milwaukee Brewers or Los Angeles Dodgers in a postseason series. But if he can get to the point where he can cover two or three innings out of the bullpen, that would be a real boost.
The Cubs learned last October against the Brewers how badly a bullpen can need bulk arms that can stop an offense in its tracks. There’s no guarantee Steele becomes that guy, but his recovery at least keeps that idea alive.
At minimum, he could become one more October option in a bullpen that might look a lot healthier by then. If Palencia, Milner, a deadline addition and Colin Rea are all available - and if the Cubs also add a starter - the relief group could look a whole lot less like a patchwork unit and a lot more like something built for the postseason.
In Other News...
Pedro Ramirez Just Put The Cubs In A Brutal Deadline Spot
Pedro Ramirez has quietly turned himself into one of the more useful pieces on the Cubs roster this season, hitting over .300 while bouncing around the diamond and giving the club a level of flexibility it can lean on. That kind of production from a versatile major league player is valuable in any year, but it carries extra weight for a team trying to line up its roster for the stretch run.
The problem is that the same traits making Ramirez so attractive inside the organization are also the ones that could make him appealing to other clubs if Chicago decides it has to use him in a bigger deal. With the deadline approaching and the Cubs looking to firm up their pitching plans, the front office is weighing whether a player who has helped stabilize the lineup can be part of the answer to a much larger need. [Read more 🡒]
Cubs Lineup Absence Just Raised The Stakes Of A Troubling Rumor
The Cubs lineup against the Yankees came with a little more intrigue than usual when Carson Kelly and Seiya Suzuki were both missing, a development that immediately fed the kind of trade-deadline chatter that tends to follow a contending club in late July. Kellys absence looks far more routine than dramatic, with the workload of catching and a packed schedule making a day off sensible, but Suzukis name always carries a different kind of weight because of what he means to Chicagos offense and overall roster construction.
Suzuki has been central enough to the Cubs that any rumor touching him naturally gets attention, and that is exactly what happened when reports linked Chicago to Mariners starter Emmerson Hancock. The interest alone is enough to keep the rumor mill spinning, even before any official offer is confirmed, and it leaves the Cubs in the familiar spot of trying to balance present-day lineup decisions with the noise that builds around deadline season. [Read more 🡒]